Tiny Raven

“So … you know her?” I asked as Sans and I left the bookstore. I slid my new paperback into my bag as we walked. “The bunny woman, I mean.”

Sans answered with a shrug and an affirmative hum, his expression distant.

“Would you tell me – ”

An uproar of cackles from a nearby shop cut me off, and I pulled my hood up to hide my face. I did not want to deal with my mother right now.

Or ever, honestly.

I cleared my throat, self-conscious and uncertain about asking my question again before opting to let it drop.

“She ran the Snowed Inn,” Sans said as we approached the bollards that marked the end of the shopping district. “Her sister ran the Snowdin general store next door.”

“Wait … Is Snowdin the name of the town or the name of the inn?”

“Yes,” Sans said with a grin, his eyelights sparking back for a moment.

I snorted before thinking about it more.

“ … Which came first? Snowdin the town or Snowed Inn the … inn?”

Sans shrugged, “Who knows? It was named long before I moved there.”

We stopped at a traffic light and I glanced at him in my periphery. His skeletal face was as difficult to read as always, but his tone was lighthearted.

“Where’d you live before that?” I asked, turning my attention to the signal across the street. “I know the Underground wasn’t big … ”

I trailed off as I felt Sans tense beside me, before quickly backtracking. “I mean, if you wanna talk about it. Sorry if that was too pushy or intrusive or so-”

“It’s fine,” Sans said, cutting my babbling off.

The words were curt and felt untrue, but I backed off. The walk signal chirped, indicating we could cross.

Once we were on the other side of the street I pulled my hood back down and shook out my hair.

“… When we were at your sister’s cafe,” Sans said, quiet enough that I had to strain to hear him over the sounds of the city. “Your nephew mentioned she’d eaten cinnamon buns in Snowdin.”

I nodded, recalling the conversation. I did my best to hide my surprise that he remembered it.

“That’s why she wanted to sell monster food at the cafe,” I said with a nod. “I think she hoped she’d come across the same monster who made them by some happy coincidence.

“Her name’s Bonnie,” Sans said. “She’s Lottie’s little sister.”

I stopped in my tracks, unable to do more than stare at him.

I knew the Underground was small …

But what were the chances?

“Lottie probably knows the recipe,” he added. “If you really wanted to find out.”

“Small world,” I said as my brain rebooted and I could walk again. “Too bad Abby and our mother don’t exactly ‘get along’.”

“From the sound of it, your mother doesn’t get along with anybody.”

I snorted, “You’re not wrong.”

An image of Lottie, her arm broken by my mother, flashed through my thoughts, and I wrapped my arms around myself as my gut churned. She was safe for the night, but Lottie would be returned at some point.

Which meant she was going to be facing my mother’s abuse again. Abuse I was utterly powerless to stop.

Rage, grief, and impotent empathy curdled within me, a painful vice around my heart.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, pulling me from my dark thoughts.

“We’re up next,” I said, the words thicker than I wanted. I swallowed hard, trying to push my emotions away. “We’d better hurry back.”

---

My name was being called by a nurse as we re-entered the clinic. She waited a few moments before repeating herself.

“Theresa Navarro?”

I spared Sans a final glance, meeting his hollow, empty eye sockets and giving him a small, encouraging smile. Then I raised my hand and picked up speed.

“Hi! That’s me.”

The woman wasn’t very old – a bit older than Abby. She was wearing pink scrubs and her light brown hair was in a loose, messy bun. She looked up from her clipboard with dark-circled eyes that widened as she took in Sans’ skeletal face. She glanced back at her paperwork before looking up at us with a broad smile, flashing metal braces that sported purple and orange bands.

“Nice to meet you, Theresa!” she nodded to me. “And Sans. I’m Grace. I’ll be assisting Doctor Raymond today. Please, follow me.”

“Thanks,” I said. I stepped aside to allow Sans to go ahead of me, but he refused with a small shake of his head. I frowned, concerned, and flashed a quick “You okay?” at him in ASL.

He shrugged, which was fair enough. He didn’t want to be here any more than I did.

“I prefer to go by Terra,” I said as I fell in step behind Grace.

“I’ll make a note of it,” she said. “Alright, first we need to take some vitals. You’ve had one of these before, right Sans?”

Despite asking him she looked at me for the answer.

I responded by looking to Sans.

He nodded, and I was grateful that Grace accepted that as an answer.

“Excellent! Your previous data should be in the system for us to compare to. I need you to take off your shoes and jacket and step on the scale, Sans.”

“It’s my first time at one of these,” I said as Sans slid out of his shoes. “I’d appreciate understanding what’s going on.”

“Of course!” Grace said. “Everything should be fairly routine. Honestly, it’s almost exactly like a regular physical for us humans.”

Sans’ movements had stalled. He stood in front of the scale, fiddling with the zipper of his hoodie, sockets dark and expression distant.

I was about to ask if he could keep it on – I couldn’t imagine it would add much to his weight, as threadbare as it was. Before I could, he pulled the zipper down and slipped it off his shoulders, holding it out for me to take.

I hesitated, surprised, before reaching to take it. I held it close to my chest, knowing how much it meant to him.

Sans looked so much smaller without it on.

“Perfect!” Grace hummed as she moved the weights to balance the scale. “Forty-two  pounds! Now, Sans, if you could stand here with your back against the wall … stand up straight, please … Great! Just like that! Don’t move, okay?”

As she lowered the slider of the stadiometer to meet his skull, I bit my lip. Something about how she was talking to Sans bothered me, but I couldn’t pinpoint it.

“Wonderful!” Grace said as she wrote down the number. “You can relax now, Sans. If you’d both follow me to the exam room, please.”

Sans stepped away from the wall and I offered him his hoodie.

“Keep it,” he muttered, his voice tight. “They’ll just make me take it off again.”

I nodded, holding it close to my chest again, honored that he trusted me with something so important.

Grace led us to an exam room, oblivious to the exchange.

“Please sit in that chair, there, Sans. I need to check your mana flow and Soul beat. Terra? If you would sit in the other chair, the one in the corner?”

I took the indicated seat and watched as Grace wrapped a cuff around Sans’ humerus. She pushed a button on the machine it was attached to and it began to inflate.

“Monsters don’t have blood like we do, but they do have a vascular system,” Grace explained when she noticed my curious stare. “Instead of a heart, monsters have their Soul – and instead of blood they have mana. This device is based off of a blood pressure cuff, but it measures the flow of mana, instead.

“It’s actually almost exactly the same to measure mana flow and blood pressure. We humans have systolic and diastolic pressure – when the heart beats or when it’s resting between beats. Monsters, similarly, have two different pressures – one for when their Soul ‘beats’ and one for when it rests.”

“The Soul beats like a heart?” I asked, surprised. “Wait … shouldn’t we have mana-flow too, then? We have Souls.”

“We do,” Grace said with a nod. “And we have mana-flow, although it’s much weaker in humans. We don’t measure it because mana isn’t necessary for our survival. For monsters, it is.”

The machine on Sans’ arm clicked and hissed as it released the pressure. Grace looked at the numbers and wrote them down on her paperwork. “It looks like your mana flow is a little weak. You’re gonna want to make sure you’re eating plenty of magic food, okay?”

Sans nodded, his face devoid of emotion.

“On the other hand, your Soul beat is strong and healthy! Congratulations! Good job!”

All at once I realized why she was setting me on edge – she was treating Sans like a child. I frowned, about to complain, when she turned to me.

“Theres- ah, Terra? The front desk gave you some paperwork to fill out, right?”

“Yeah,” I said as I dug it out of my bag to hand to her.

“Excellent! This will make things much easier. Give me just a minute to get you fully checked in … ”

Grace took the paperwork to where a computer monitor and keyboard were mounted to the wall. While she began typing in all of Sans’ information, I looked around the room.

It looked almost exactly like every other exam room I had ever had the misfortune of being in. Half of one wall was taken up by cabinets and a counter, part of another was occupied by the computer monitor and a small table. Large biohazard and trash bins sat near the door. The other walls were covered in anatomy posters and familiar-looking medical devices – an otoscope, ophthalmoscope, another blood pressure cuff – as well as a boxy tablet-looking device that I didn’t know the use for. The exam table itself was the biggest difference, being larger and sturdier than the ones in any doctor’s office I had ever been in.

I wondered if there were different setups for monsters with non-humanoid body plans. I couldn’t imagine someone with a tail being comfortable on a table like the one in this room.

I swallowed, noticing the ball of anxiety that had begun to build in my chest.

I hated doctor offices.

“Alright, could you tell me your primary complaint? Your reason for coming in today.”

“As a necessary sacrifice of my time to the god Bureaucracy,” I said dryly. Sans snorted beside me, easing some of my encroaching anxiety, but Grace just stared at me, her expression blank and clearly not understanding. “Ah, the general physical,” I clarified.

A few heartbeats of silence followed before her face broke into a wide smile and she barked out a laugh.

“Well, that’s certainly one way to describe it!” she said as she chuckled. She turned back to the computer and typed in my answer – the second one, I assumed. “Can I get Sans’ ID number, please?”

Before I could tell her to just check the paperwork Sans had already rattled the jumble of numbers and letters off to her.

Grace gasped.

“You haven’t had a checkup in nearly two years?” she said as she scrolled down the records. “That … That can’t be right, but we don’t have any more recent information … Monsters are supposed to be seen at least once a year – our clinic recommends every six months at absolute minimum.”

“Guess I fell through the cracks,” Sans said, his voice flat and monotone.

“Right … ” Grace said softly. “Well, that means we’ll have to do everything. For a skeleton that means … Samples of your magic, dust, and possibly marrow … ”

His marrow?!

I stared at Sans, only able to see half of his face. I couldn’t read the emotion behind his dark sockets and frozen grin. For all I knew he was emotionless.

“We’ll also need to take a look at your Soul.”

It was only because I was staring at him that I saw the lightning flash of emotion cross his face. Tension pulled at the corners of his smile and sockets, teeth ground together, balled fists clenching in his lap. There and gone in an instant.

“That sounds invasive,” I said as I turned away from him, deeply uncomfortable.

I was starting to understand why he hadn’t told me about this particular necessity.

Grace stepped away from the computer and began rifling through the cabinets, pulling out tools and instruments and placing them on the countertop.

“Yes,” she agreed. “But we wouldn’t do it unless it was necessary.” She held a gown out to Sans. “I’m sorry we have to do so many tests, but once we’re done you’ll be good for another year or more!”

The skeleton took the gown from her with a stiff, wordless nod.

“I’ll need you to take off everything and put that on with the opening in the back. Then hop up on the table. I’ll be back as soon as I can with the doctor.”

And then she was gone.

I stared at the closed door, filled with shock and horror.

“I can tell them to fuck off,” I told Sans. “The mandate says you have to be seen by a doctor and certified as healthy. That’s it. Just say the word.”

To my surprise he shook his head.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said as he stood and pulled his t-shirt up and off.

I looked down at my hands with an embarrassed squeak.

“D-Do you want me to wait outside?” I asked.

Sans huffed something that might have been an attempted laugh.

“It’s fine,” he said. His shorts landed on the floor next to his shirt. “S’just bones. Same as all those decorations that were everywhere last week. You didn’t have a problem with those.”

“Sure,” I said. “But those aren’t people.”

I looked up at poster on the wall, an anatomical depiction of a generic monster Soul, with parts cut away and labeled.

Plenty of people didn’t think monsters were people, either.

I didn’t turn back to look at Sans until I heard the crinkle of paper, the indication that he’d climbed up onto the exam table.

The hospital gown was an awkward fit, too wide at the neck, but it covered him well enough. I snorted at the pile of clothes he’d left on the floor.

“What about during the exam?” I asked as I bent to pick up his shorts to fold, having nowhere else for my nervous energy to go. “I can leave-”

“No,” Sans said, cutting off the question before I could answer. “… Stay?”

The word was so soft, barely a whisper. Something between a request and a plea.

Something small and warm and painful bloomed in my chest. I kept my head down, attention on folding his discarded clothes and putting them on the chair beside me.

“Of course,” I promised. “I won’t go anywhere unless you tell me to.”

“… Thanks.”

---

We waited for ten minutes before I handed my phone to Sans and pulled my new book from my bag.

Ten minutes later I took my phone back to call into work, letting them know I might be late and apologizing profusely. I still had more than enough time to get there, but I wasn’t about to be the asshole who didn’t show up without a call, leaving them short staffed.

Another twenty minutes and I started pacing, unable to concentrate on my book. Anxiety had begun to build, a tight snarl in my chest, at both being stuck in an exam room and the worry that I was going to miss my shift at my new job.

Every minute after that my panic grew until I felt like screaming.

Until the doctor finally showed up a goddamn hour later.

The door flew open without so much as a warning knock, admitting a very large man who bustled into the room, introducing himself in a blur of words. He immediately strode toward me, hand outstretched for me to shake, invading my personal space without a second thought.

Already on edge, my lizard brain defaulted into trauma-response mode, leaving me frozen and unable to to do anything but cower away from him.

Don’t doctors usually knock before entering patient rooms?

The thought, too late to stop my terrified flinch, was enough to snap my brain back into gear, and my response went from freeze to fight.

I pulled myself to my full height – a good foot shorter than the doctor – and glared at the man.

“I’m not your patient,” I said, trying to keep my voice low and even. I looked over at Sans, sitting on the exam table with dark sockets.

The doctor stared at me, hand still outstretched, confused.

Then Grace entered the room, breaking the stalemate before it could truly become awkward.

“Here!” she said as she stepped around the doctor, placing herself between us. She held a stack of papers and pamphlets out to me. “These will explain everything you’ll need to know about he procedures we’ll be doing today. As I said before, we’ll be taking samples of Sans’ bones and magic, as well as some of his marrow. We’ll also need to take a look at his Soul.” She turned back to the doctor, and I got the impression she was very deliberately not looking at either me or Sans. “We might need to take a sample of that, as well.”

“Of his Soul!?” I demanded with a snarl.

“I-It’s a fairly standard procedure,” she responded, clearly not expecting my hostility.

“Don’t worry,” the doctor said. He had given up on shaking my hand and was now standing at the counter, pulling on a pair of nitrile gloves. “Monsters don’t experience pain the same way we humans do. A small Soul sample won’t cause him any harm.”

I glanced at Sans, and his expression told me all I needed to know about the veracity of the statement. The doctor either didn’t know what he was talking about, or he was outright lying to me. Either way, it rankled against my nerves.

“Right,” Grace said, not sounding very convinced herself. “Anyway, we’ll start with a basic physical, then move on from there.”

The doctor stepped toward Sans before grabbing him by the jaw and forcing him to look into an ophthalmoscope.

“Hey!” I snapped, throwing myself into the doctor’s space, separating him from Sans. Both human and monster jumped away from me, surprised and bemused. I glared at the doctor. “Do not manhandle the skeleton.”

“I am only doing my job,” he said, barely hiding his annoyance. Like I was the one in the wrong.

“You can do that while treating him with some basic respect,” I said.

The doctor frowned, muttering under his breath, before finally nodding in agreement.

I sat back down in the chair I’d been directed to when we had first come into the exam room, watching the man’s moves intently.

“Why are you looking into his sockets anyway?” I asked. “He’s a skeleton, there’s no retinas to check.”

“Look this way,” the doctor said as he returned to his examination. Sans obeyed without fuss. “I try to be thorough with my examinations. The more data we have, the better care we can provide. Good. Now open your mouth. Can you form a tongue?”

I blinked in surprise, unaware that was even a possibility.

I was even more surprised when Sans responded by sticking out a blue appendage and saying “aaaaahhhh”.

“Excellent. The magic looks well-saturated. Nurse, please record the color and quality.”

“Of course, Doctor Raymond,” Grace said, reminding me what the man’s name was.

“How much of a body can you manifest?” Raymond asked as he moved to look into Sans’ acoustic meatus.

“Full,” he answered, monotone. “ ‘Cept my skull, hands, ‘nd feet.”

“Fascinating,” Raymond said.

I was quietly relieved he didn’t ask Sans to show him.

The doctor moved on with the examination, putting a stethoscope to Sans’ chest and telling him to take deep breaths. I could see his rib cage rise and fall with them, and for the first time I wondered how the skeleton breathed.

And why he would need to.

Raymond felt along the bones in Sans’ arms and legs, checked the reflexes of his knees, had him hold his arms out straight and push against his hands …

It was almost exactly like what I would expect if I were to go to a physical exam – which made no sense. All the tests the doctor was doing made sense for a human with flesh and blood, but Sans wasn’t human. He didn’t have lungs to listen to or muscle to check the tone and strength of.

As the appointment stretched on it felt more and more absurd.

And demeaning, as the whole time Raymond ordered Grace to make notes about his observations.

I was already deeply uncomfortable with the entire thing, and I felt sick when I realized they hadn’t even gotten to the more invasive parts of the exam.

When Raymond pulled the boxy tablet-looking thing away from the wall and centered it over Sans’ chest Grace came over to speak to me.

“That checks a monster’s Soul, without the need to summon it,” she explained. “It’s much less invasive. It’s similar to something like an ultrasound or an MRI.”

The machine hummed to life, and I did my best to keep an eye on the doctor while not staring at Sans’ Soul on the screen. Even with the barrier of a digital display it felt far too intrusive.

“This can’t be right … ” Raymond muttered as he fiddled with the settings on the tablet. “Nurse?”

Grace stepped over to assist, frowning as she apparently tried troubleshooting the device.

“It looks like it’s working properly, doctor.”

“Maybe it’s because of its magical composition … Order it to summon its Soul.”

I stared at the doctor.

“What?”

“There is a problem with the scanner’s readings. Order your skeleton to summon its Soul.”

Past the anger I felt at him referring to Sans as “it” I heard the concern and confusion in the doctor’s voice. I looked to Sans, trying to get a read on his thoughts, but he was sitting completely straight and still, looking away from me.

“I’m not going to order him to do anything,” I said. “But, if it’s actually important, you can ask him to.”

“Miss-”

“S’fine,” Sans said, cutting the doctor off before he could try to bully me into compliance. The room was filled with a ghostly, silverly glow as the monster summoned his Soul of his own volition.

I looked down at my hands before I could catch a glimpse of it.

“Right,” Raymond said. I watched his boots turn away from me and return to the exam table. There was the noise of him fiddling with the tablet again, as well as the tapping of someone typing on a computer.

“The readings match historical data, Doctor Raymond,” Grace said.

There was a moment of silence, thick enough to cut with a knife, and then a click.

“You can put your Soul back,” Raymond said.

I looked up again once the silvery light was gone.

“Just get the magic sample,” he said to Grace. Then he turned to me. “Come with me. I need to speak with you.”

---

Sparrow came up the stairs as I was getting ready to go, a new novel in hand to purchase.

“Hey, Beau?” she asked, sounding apologetic. “I know it’s near your break, but Lottie’s here and I could use some help.”

The rabbit heaved an exaggerated sigh. “I’ll be right down. You need to learn ASL, Spare. It’s not the same as Hands but-”

“But it’s close enough to be useful,” the girl said as she turned to descend the stairs again. “I know, I know. I’ve got a class starting in January!”

Beau chuckled as he locked the till and flipped the “open” sign to one that said “Closed. Be back soon.”

“You remember my cousin, Charlotte, right?” he asked Sans.

The skeleton nodded, and I trailed behind the two monsters as we all made our way downstairs, not-so-subtly eavesdropping on their conversation.

“Her human is a real piece of work,” Beau said. “She sends Lots on errands to pick stuff up – but she’s forbidden to speak! Then she – the human – gets upset when nobody knows what Lottie is there for. She’s pretty cruel to Lottie, too. But … well, you know her. She always tries to hold onto hope, no matter how bad things get. Even though every time I see her she’s got some new injury … ”

Beau trailed off and I felt sick, useless anger curdling in my stomach with disgust. How many people in Ebbot were like Apollo? Like my mother?

I wasn’t sure whether to feel relief or frustration when I saw who Lottie was.

She looked almost the same as she had Halloween night, dark circles under her eyes and ears drooping with fatigue.

Lottie and Beau exchanged a quick hug, my mother’s slave only using her left arm. She began signing as soon as they separated.

“She says Karen Miller placed an order online, and sent Lottie to pick it up,” Beau said.

The human girl tapped at a tablet with a frown.

“I don’t see anything from her in the last month … ” Sparrow said. “Nothing since her last binge – which I definitely remember you picking up.”

Lottie’s paws became a flurry of movement again, too fast for me to read with my rusty memory of ASL.

“She’s wondering if – ”

“If there’s anything in the back?” Sparrow asked, cutting Beau off. “Yeah, I’ll go check. I don’t think she actually placed an order, though. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Thanks,” Beau said as Lottie signed, “Thank you.”

Once Sparrow was out of view Lottie sighed, her shoulders and ears slumping further in resigned exhaustion.

“Come on upstairs, Lots,” Beau said in a gentle tone. “Let’s get you something to eat.”

Which is when Lottie noticed Sans.

Then she noticed me.

And she obviously put together that Sans was with me.

I began to stammer an explanation, only to stop when I saw the heavy bandaging on Lottie’s arm.

I saw red.

“Did she do that to you?!” I hissed, approaching Lottie and pointing angrily at the cast. My thoughts turned toward the last time I had seen my mother.

Halloween.

She hadn’t been happy when Abby and I had left.

Lottie stepped away from me, eyes wide with fear, and Beau was quick to step between us. I stopped, trying to calm my breathing and holding my hands up in what I hoped was placating rather than threatening.

I was regretting eating the panini, delicious as it had been.

Sans was staring at me like I’d lost my mind.

He wasn’t exactly wrong.

“Y’know her?” Sans asked, breaking the tense silence.

I nodded, refusing to look at any of them as guilt, shame, and worry warred in my stomach.

“She lives … “ I swallowed hard, clenching my eyes closed. “Karen Miller is my mother.”

My mother, who must have been furious after that stunt we’d pulled on Halloween. Especially since we left before she got a chance to get a photo of Chloe to plaster across social media.

My memory echoed her enraged screams as we walked away.

I hadn’t even considered that she would turn on the rabbit woman.

Charlotte.

“Did she do that to you?” I asked again, voice cracking.

“Yes.”

The simple sign felt like a punch to my gut.

“It wasn’t your fault. Or your sister’s.”

I clenched my fists at my sides, feeling my nails bite into my calloused palms. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from challenging Lottie’s assurances.

My mouth filled with the taste of iron.

“Sorry Lottie,” Sparrow said as she returned from the back. “There’s nothing there. I checked all the invoices and – uh … am I interrupting something?”

“Seems our guest is related to Karen Miller,” Beau said. He didn’t move from his protective position between his cousin and me. “She was asking about Lottie’s arm.”

Sparrow looked at me curiously, before returning her attention to the rabbit woman.

“Is this your last errand, or do you have more to do?”

“This is it,” Lottie signed.

“Where is she?”

“Eva’s Café.” Lottie said. She glanced at me before adding, “She’s drinking mimosas with a friend.”

I groaned in frustration.

It wasn’t a surprise. My mother was no stranger to day drinking, although she usually did it at home. Unfortunately, she was far too proud to call for a cab, though, and she already had at least two DUIs on her license.

“Fuck,” I muttered as I considered my options. My conscience wouldn’t let me just walk away, not when I knew she would be putting others at risk. I should call the police – or at least text Abby so she or Xander could come deal with the situation.

I traced the outline of my cellphone in my jeans.

“I take it you’re not Karen’s biggest fan,” Sparrow said.

“You could say that.” I muttered. “She’s my mother. We don’t have the best relationship.” I glanced at Sans as I pulled my phone from my pocket. “What happens when a monster’s human is arrested? To the monster, I mean.”

It wouldn’t hurt my mother to have to face the consequences of her actions for once.

Sans shrugged, “It depends. If there’s another responsible adult around with a claim – like a partner or next of kin – the monster can be taken in by them. But if there isn’t, or if the human disallows it, the monster gets booked alongside the human.”

Which meant calling the cops on my mother would put Lottie in jail right along with her. I glanced at the cast on her arm, torn.

“Oh!” Sparrow said, interrupting my internal debate. “Don’t worry about that. Third Place is a halfway house for monsters – I made certain of it as soon as I learned the option was available.”

“Third Place?” I asked, completely lost. “Halfway house?”

“Sparrow is legally allowed to take in monsters whose humans can’t care for them for whatever reason,” he shifted to sit on the stairs. “The monsters have to work at least ten hours a week, but they don’t have to be locked up.”

“And ‘Third Place’ is this store,” Sparrow explained. “Or … all three stores together, really.”

“Three stores?” I asked. “I only knew about the bookstore and the café.”

“My partner runs the game store in the other building,” Sparrow explained. “The ‘Rook’. Anyway, cops usually hate booking monsters – it’s extra paperwork with no benefit. It’s like … hours of extra work, since monsters have to be booked differently than humans. So most of the time they’ll gladly release monsters into the custody of halfway houses if the option is available.”

“Is that why you’re here?” I asked Beau. “Because it’s a halfway house?”

“Beau is my best employee,” Sparrow said brightly. “I’m gonna miss him when he quits for bigger and better things.”

“I’m not quitting,” Beau said with a roll of his eyes. He turned to me. “I just work here. But Lottie will be able to stay until Karen is released, especially if Sparrow is the one to call the cops on her.”

“Yep!” Sparrow said. “So, is she coming here to get you, or are you supposed to go to the café and meet her. I know the owner over there, and can work something out, but it’ll be a hell of a lot easier if I can call the cops because she’s on my property.”

“She is coming here,” Lottie signed. “… Eventually.”

Sparrow snorted.

“Awesome. Go rest up in the café. Beau can get you anything you want – just charge it to the store. I’ll deal with Karen when she gets here. Oh, and Beau? Once you get Lottie settled, it’s your break. You’d better not so much as think about working during it. Take some time to catch up with your cousin. Relax. That’s an order.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Beau responded, his words light and friendly. He stood up and twitched his head toward Lottie before beginning his ascent.

“Thank you,” Lottie signed before she turned to follow him.

“Oh, and Beau?” Sparrow called up after them. “Make sure Lottie gets something for her arm.”

“Will do,” Beau called back.

“As for you,” Sparrow said as she turned toward me. “I could use any advice you have in dealing with your mother until the cops get here. You don’t have to stay, of course, but anything you’re willing to share would absolutely make my day. Your mother is … well … she’s certainly a person.”

“Is she, though?” I asked before I could think better of it.

Sparrow laughed hard enough that she snorted.

“True enough,” she said as her giggles died down. “Anyway, I know she’s not gonna respect me – it’s not like she’s ever treated me like I’m sentient before, I see no reason that would change. But is there anything I should keep in mind?”

---

The shopping district was a cordoned-off avenue, with decorative bollards at each end to block vehicles from entering. The buildings were older, two or three stories tall and built of sturdy brick and mortar instead of modern glass and steel.

It was a much nicer area than most of the places I frequented, full of expensive boutiques and upscale gastropubs.

I felt distinctly out of place in my ratty hoodie and frayed jeans.

“The receptionist recommended the bookstore,” I mumbled as I shoved my discomfort to the back of my mind. I pulled the stack of paperwork from my bag to check the sticky note. “ The Feather Quill .”

The street was busy but not crowded. Groups of people congregated beneath space heaters, chatting and laughing in the chill. Determined to enjoy the last Sunday of the year before winter truly took hold. 

We passed a burger joint and the smell of meat and grease set my mouth watering. A glance at the menu quelled my hunger, leaving me queasy instead.

“I dunno how anyone could stomach those prices. Just looking at them killed my appetite,” I said to Sans as we continued our search.

I was rewarded with a small chuckle, which I celebrated with my usual fist pump and a soft “Fuck yeah!” – drawing another snicker out of him.

“Let’s hope the café is more affordable or … uh … “ I stuttered to a stop, trying to remember what I had been trying to say. When nothing came to mind I shrugged. “Thought I’d think of something before I got to the end of that sentence, but here we are and I’ve got no thoughts. My brain is as empty as my stomach.”

“ Donut worry,” Sans said. “Not everyone can be a wiener .”

I stared at him.

He had punned back.

He never punned back.

I nearly tripped over my own feet in surprise.

“Six points,” I said as I regained my composure, hoping he hadn’t seen my lack of coordination. Hoping my tone actually sounded casual and level. “Out of ten.”

Sans’ eyelights flickered over to me, his skull tilted in what I interpreted as curiosity. I pointed back toward the burger joint. “They didn’t have donuts on the menu. Or hot dogs.”

Sans snorted and gave me a loose shrug.

“Y’gotta grab the opportunities as they pun .”

“Oof. That one was way too forced. Two points. One for pity, one for effort.”

“Tough crowd,” he muttered.

“What can I say?” I said. “I only accept bad jokes of the highest tier. Gotta give me the top-shelf of punnery. Nothing else will do.”

“Yeah? How’d that happen?”

“Life,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “It’s the worst joke I know.”

Silence.

I glanced back at Sans, my gaze falling immediately on his collar and souring my nascent good mood. I turned away, ashamed.

What right did I have to complain? All the bad shit in my life I’d brought upon myself.

“Hey,” Sans said, drawing my attention back to him. He was looking across the street. “Is that it?”

The Feather Quill was larger than I had expected. Stairs at the back led to a second level, and there was an opening into one of the adjacent buildings.

A chime jingled as we entered.

“Welcome! Anything I can help you find?”

The girl at the cash register smiled brightly. She closed the book she had been reading, saving her place with what looked like a strip of receipt paper.

“Uh, the café?” I asked, unable to stop staring at her hair. It looked like cotton candy, pulled up into twin buns on either side of her head.

“Upstairs,” she said, pointing toward the back of the shop. “Stairs are right over there, or if you want there’s an elevator. It’s old and creepy but I promise it’s safe. I just had it looked over. Just don’t do anything stupid and it’ll be fine.”

With that glowing endorsement I was definitely going to take the stairs.

“I recommend the ham and cheese panini, personally, but everything’s good. We’re not licensed for monster food, but Beau – our barista – can infuse whatever you’d like.”

“Infuse?” I asked. Before Sans or the checkout girl could answer my stomach growled, and I shook my head. “Never mind.”

I began walking toward the stairs with a nod toward the girl, “Thanks.”

“No problem. If you need anything just holler. Name’s Sparrow.”

“Welcome to The Roost!”

I shouldn’t have been so surprised by the barista.

Although it was difficult to not be surprised by a seven-foot tall baby-blue bipedal rabbit.

It wasn’t weird to see monsters around Ebott, doing odd jobs or running errands, but it wasn’t common .

Monsters were expensive, and the desire to dominate and control other people rarely intersected with the wealth to do so. There were obviously people who owned slaves – like my mother or Apollo. My mother had likely maxed out at least one credit card in order to buy the rabbit lady. A small price to pay to have someone to control. Apollo believed having a monster would help promote his bar and make it a destination, so he determined that the expense was worth it.

It didn’t hurt that his family was loaded.

Most monsters were owned by large corporations. They did similar work to me – monotonous, soul-crushing, “unskilled” labor on factor lines or in fields. Or they were forced to do the tasks that had been deemed to dangerous for humans.

“Anything I can get for you?” the rabbit asked.

Most monsters weren’t baristas as cozy bookstore cafés.

“We’re just looking,” I said as I neared the counter, lost in my thoughts. The words stilted to my own ear. I felt uneasy, patronizing somewhere that had a monster slave – especially when I didn’t know the owner. At least I knew Apollo. He was a narcissistic asshole, but he treated Grillby well enough.

“Spiffy! Just let me know when you’re ready.”

“Still saying ‘spiffy’, Beau?” Sans asked, his tone friendly and pained.

I glanced between the two monsters, surprised out of my dark thoughts. “You two know each other?”

“Lived in the same town,” Sans explained with a shrug. He began to look at the pastries in the display case. “We were business rivals.”

“Business rivals?” I repeated, curious and intrigued. It was so rare for Sans to talk about his past in the Underground, before the Barrier fell.

“If you could call it a rivalry,” Beau said. “There wasn’t much market for fried snow.”

“There wasn’t much for ice cream, either, bud.”

The banter felt natural, and eased some of my misgivings. I was still uneasy, but at the very least I could give Sans some time with someone he knew.

I held my hand out to the rabbit, “My name’s Terra. It seems unfair I should know yours when you don’t know mine.”

He took my hand and shook it twice, his smile growing a little.

“Beauregard, but please – call me Beau.”

“Nice to meet you!” I said sincerely. I glanced at Sans as I took my hand back. “Find anything good?”

“Tomato soup,” Sans said, his attention still firmly on the options in the case. I couldn’t tell if he was avoiding looking at me, Beau, or if the cold turkey and ham sandwiches were just that interesting.

“Cool,” I said as I pulled my wallet out of my bag. “Can we get a tomato soup and a ham and cheese panini? Sparrow suggested it.”

“Of course!” Beau said brightly as he rang up the order and counted out my change. “I’ll have that out to you in a jiffy!”

“Thanks,” I said as I took my change and the receipt. I dropped the coins into the tip jar before adding a few extra dollars.

It was the least I could do.

The café covered about half of the second floor of the store. Sandwiched between the Young Adult section and the graphic novels and manga, it was made up of some tables and chairs as well as a couple of couches. I commandeered one to work on the medical paperwork for Sans.

The very … uncomfortably thorough medical paperwork.

I had managed to get through the first section when Sans came over with my sandwich and his soup.

I frowned at the panini. It looked delicious and was a good size, but I wasn’t certain it would hold me through my night shift.

Of course, not eating it definitely wouldn’t keep me going through my night shift … 

I pushed the paperwork away in favor of eating.

“How’s your food?” I asked around a bite of sandwich, watching Sans stir his soup without eating it.

“S’alright,” he said. “I’m just not soup- er hungry.”

I snorted at the pun, but the improvement to my mood was short-lived. I glanced back toward the counter, where Beau was sitting with a book.

“We can get it to go … I’ll eat it later if you don’t want it.”

Tomato soup was far from my favorite food, but I couldn’t stand the idea of wasting it.

Sans shrugged, and we lapsed back into silence. I decided to leave the topic alone for now. If we needed to get back to the clinic before he’d finished eating I could get a to-go box.

I ate in silence, looking at the paperwork from the corner of my eye.

“You ever had one of these before?”

Sans raised a brow at me – an expression I still couldn’t fully reconcile with his skeletal face.

“Soup?”

“The medical thing,” I clarified with a wave at the paperwork.

Sans looked back at his food, expression nauseated. “One or two,” he mumbled.

He pushed the bowl away with a grimace.

“Right … ” I said.

I suddenly realized why he wasn’t hungry – and felt stupid that I hadn’t figured it out sooner.

It wasn’t like I was a fan of doctor appointments, either. Hell, I avoided them as much as possible – and not only because I didn’t have insurance.

“Hey, if there’s time after … ” I paused, uncertain how my offer would be taken. “Do … Would you wanna get some ice cream?”

“What?” Sans asked, meeting my eyes with wide, dark sockets.

“It’s a human thing,” I explained. “It’s … well usually it’s used as an incentive for kids – ‘Behave at the doctor’s and we can get ice cream after.’ ”

“Y’think you gotta bribe me to behave?” Sans asked. “Like I’m some kinda babybones?”

“No!” I said quickly, waving my hands as though I could clear away the insinuation behind his words. “Not at all! I just … ” I faltered, looking away from him. “I know how bad doctor appointments suck. Getting a treat afterwards makes it suck a little less.”

I turned back to look at my sandwich with a frown.

“Although now that I think about it … Traditionally I think you’re supposed to get ice cream for being good at the dentist. Being good at the doctor gets you a lollipop,” I chuckled as I looked back up to meet his baffled expression. “Y’know, I always felt like a sucker , being good for the doctor for some cheap candy.”

Sans snorted and I could see some of the tension bleed from his shoulders. He pulled the bowl back toward himself and took a bite.

Fuck yeah.

“So … you wanna get ice cream?”

“Sure,” he said, finally meeting my eyes. Something in my chest warmed when I saw the eyelights in his usually dark sockets. They were dim, but there . “Ice cream sounds cool .”

“Awesome,” I said with a smile. “It’s a plan.”

I finished off my sandwich in companionable silence, all too soon finding myself face-to-face with the paperwork again.

I picked it up with a sigh.

I couldn’t answer the next set of information on my own.

“So … ” I asked as lightly as possible. “When’s your birthday?”

“Dunno.”

I blinked at the skeleton, surprised. “You … don’t know?”

“Nope.”

“ … Not even the year?”

“Nope.”

“ … How old are you?”

“It’s impolite to ask people their age.”

“It’s impolite to ask women their age,” I countered. “Men aren’t supposed to give a fuck.”

“Old as dirt,” Sans said with a dismissive wave.

I glared at him, becoming frustrated. “You aren’t helping.”

“You should reevaluate your assumptions on my desire to be helpful,” Sans said with a grin. He leaned back in his chair, balancing on the back two legs in the exact way I had always been yelled at for doing.

I resisted the urge to tell him to be careful, but decided to move on. If Sans wasn’t going to help me out, I just wouldn’t answer.

They should have all the information on file anyway.

“Monsters don’t keep time like humans,” Sans said after a moment. He tipped the chair back down and stirred at his soup. “You humans have the sun and moon, day and night. We didn’t have that Underground. We kept time as best we could based on the ebb and flow of our magic. It worked, but it wasn’t perfect and things diverged.” He sighed, staring at his soup like it held all the answers in the universe. “Then the Barrier broke and things were crazy … nobody cared enough to try to match up the calendars.”

I looked back down at the paperwork.

What he was saying made sense. Human cultures didn’t keep time the same way, so I shouldn’t have expected Monsters to keep the same calendar.

I wondered how someone would even go about synching the monster and Gregorian calendars – especially if the two didn’t agree on something as basic as the length of a day. And how could they – without the cycle of day and night to tell?

“Why the hell does it ask for your birthdate, then?” I asked with a frown.

“Forms are prob’ly copied from some vet or somethin’,” he said with a dark chuckle. He waved a hand as he continued. “Honestly, askin’ for age doesn’t make sense for monsters anyway. We live longer’n humans, and some of the stronger monsters are basically immortal ‘nless they decide to have kids. What’re you gonna do with the year ‘1668’? It’s meaningless.

“And age doesn’t matter to monsters like it does to humans. You all age more or less the same – mentally and physically. Monsters don’t.”

I nodded, vaguely recalling some of the lectures I’d gone to. Lectures I couldn’t quite remember the details of. Something about how “maturity” in monsters didn’t follow the same linear process as it did in humans.

“Wanna choose a birthday?” I asked after a quiet moment.

“Nope.”

I sighed, considering leaving the line blank on principle. It wasn’t like they really needed to know. Sans was right – it was arbitrary and meaningless.

I glanced around the café, my sight settling on Beau and remembering what he’d said about Sans selling fried snow.

I thought about the first week Sans lived with me.

The near-empty box of cookies. The single cherry tomato.

He might have been doing it to be a jerk, but it was so similar to the pranks my little brother sometimes played. Gifts wrapped in duct tape, boxes five times bigger than the item they held.

I looked at Sans, appraising.

He was a prankster.

“How do you feel about April first?”

The skeleton shrugged, but looked up from his soup.

“It’s a human holiday,” I explained as I wrote it down. “ ‘April Fool’s Day’. I don’t know the history or anything, but people celebrate it with practical jokes and pranks.” I looked up at him, meeting his eye sockets as I finished. “It seems like your kinda holiday.”

His eyelights, still dim, sparked a little and I knew I’d made a good choice.

I hummed a victory theme under my breath before moving onto the next line.

“What do you want your ‘purpose’ to be?”

“Movin’ onto philosophy now?”

I rolled my eyes, about to snark back, when I realized he was considering it. I continued through the questionnaire while I let him think.

How long has the monster been in your possession?

How much time does your monster spend in your presence (ie: within the same home or workplace)?”

Of this time, what percentage has been within your direct presence (ie: within the same room)?

What percentage has your monster been within your direct line of sight?

I frowned at the questions, unable to decide if I should be truthful or if I should say Sans spent most of his time in my presence.

“Bodyguard,” Sans said, thoroughly breaking my train of thought. I looked at him, confused, before remembering my earlier question.

Then I realized he was using the job I’d told my coworkers.

“Glad you approve,” I said with a chuckle as I wrote it on the line.

“You think I could pass as Vin Diesel?” Sans asked, flexing his nonexistent muscles.

I paused in my writing to stare at him. “You don’t know any of the classic Disney masterpieces, but you do know a shitty action comedy?”

Sans shrugged as he picked up his now-empty bowl and my empty plate.

I shook my head as he bussed the dishes to the counter, deciding to answer the questions truthfully, just in case I was asked for more information.

The less I had to remember, the better.

Does your monster perform tasks requiring magical output?

Does your monster perform rigorous or physically demanding tasks?

Does your monster perform sexual tasks?

Do you have any plans or desires to have your monster perform any of the above tasks? Please explain.

No. No. NO. NO.

My brain stuck on the “sexual tasks” for a moment, outrage and disgust filling my soul.

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being “negligible or none” and 10 being “extremely”)

How obedient is your monster with the aid of the collar? NA

How obedient is your monster without the aid of the collar? 10

How aggressive is your monster? 1

How likely is your monster to attack humans? 1

… animals? 1

… other monsters?

I looked up to see Sans chatting with Beau, both of them smiling and laughing. I wrote another one.

Has your monster shown sexual interest in any of the following … 

“Nope,” I said as I flipped the sheet over to the next page. “Nope nope nope.”

I continued on, filling what little I could. Unfortunately the forms mostly asked for things I didn’t know and didn’t want to know. Things I had no business prying into.

If Sans felt like divulging his secrets he could, but I wasn’t going to dig into his private medical history. Or his sexual history, which the paperwork seemed extremely interested in.

I double checked the pages, making sure everything I had filled out was accurate, then gathered it up and walked over to the counter.

Just in time to catch the tail end of a joke.

“-d the bartender says, ‘Don’t worry about it. The peanuts are complimentary.’ ”

Beau snorted and I felt like an intruder.

“Hey,” I said, getting Sans’ attention. “The rest of this is stuff I can’t answer. It’s private medical stuff. You wanna fill it out for yourself?”

Sans glanced at the papers, then back up at me.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Thanks.”

“Cool,” I said, taking a step back. “I’ll be looking at the manga once you’re done.”

---

I was awake.

Why the actual fuck was I awake?

I woke before my alarm to calm silence and darkness.

A quick check of the time on my phone informed me that it was too early to call into any of my jobs to do a schedule check – but it was late enough that I’d sleep through the afternoon if I fell back asleep.

Balls.

I stared at my dark ceiling in frustrated resignation, angry and exhausted. My one day to sleep in, my last day to sleep in before the holiday season, and I was awake before dawn.

If there was a god I was going to find him and punch him in his stupid face.

I rubbed at my eyes as I sat up, trying to ignore the sting of overwhelmed tears.

At least I had a couple hours I could do something productive with.

The thought was less comforting than it should have been.

I couldn’t remember the time I’d checked my email.

I pulled my laptop out of my bag and flipped it open, wincing as I was blinded by the bright glow of the screen.

Once my eyes adjusted I logged into my email, wondering how many messages I’d been ignoring.

Surprisingly, the number wasn’t too bad. There were a few hundred unread emails, and most of it was completely pointless.

The bulk of it was promotional junk, sites and stores reminding me that Black Friday was coming up and – like every year – there were going to be all sorts of crazy sales.

     JUST THREE WEEKS AWAY!!

Just in case I needed a reminder about the huge sale I usually worked through that sometimes lead to people being trampled to death.

I deleted all of them without a second thought.

There were a fair number of political emails; calls to action to defend the rights of humans and monsters, local and national.

It was exhausting just looking at them.

I didn’t have the energy for activism. Or the time. Or the money.

I unsubscribed from each mailing list, guilty and too tired to really care.

And then … there was a single email from the City of Ebott Department of Monster Services.

     Regarding Your New Monster

My curiosity shifted to anxiety as I skimmed the message.

     Thank you … registering … monster … Our records … not completed a physical evaluation … required … submit proof … completed health evaluation … by … January 202X . Failure … may result … fine of $150 per day or repossession …

I read it again as panic coiled in my empty stomach.

      Thank you for registering your monster with the Ebott City Department of Monster Services (DMS)! Our records show that UDSK-ST-001S has not completed a physical evaluation in over one (1) year. This evaluation is required in order to monitor the health and wellbeing of the monster, and to provide invaluable information to researchers in the field of monster biology.

      Please submit proof of a completed health evaluation by a licensed Monster Health Practitioner by 4 January 20XX . Failure to do so may result in a penalty fine of $150 per day or repossession of the monster at your expense …

I read it again, swallowing hard against the burn of acid in my throat.

And again.

And again.

My mind kept catching on the last words, understanding but desperately wanting to have read the words wrong.

     … repossession of the monster …

All I could see was Sans’ expression the day we met. When the asshole had ordered him to not move.

When he’d been powerless to avoid being beaten into compliance.

When he’d been ordered to “Stay still and take it.”

If I didn’t take care of this, Sans would be back in that system. He’d be sold off to another jackass who didn’t give a shit about him.

And I hadn’t even known.

It was pure luck that I’d woken up early. Chance that I’d decided to go through my neglected inbox.

What if I had chosen to do laundry?

What if I’d chosen to double check my shopping list?

What if I’d done any of the other tasks in my mental queue that I could have done instead of checking my email?!

     … repossession …

I wouldn’t have known.

I turned toward my door, thoughts unraveling faster than I could keep pace with.

Had Sans known? Had he known this was a thing that needed to be done? Had he known the time limit?

He’d known about the Soul Calibration and hadn’t said anything, but that situation had been different. Sans hadn’t trusted me.

I had hoped he trusted me now.

It was possible he hadn’t known. He said he hadn’t been with any single human long, and the stack of papers in my bag was proof enough of that statement. I wasn’t sure if there were enough to justify Sans never having stayed with a human long enough … but I definitely couldn’t rule it out.

     … repossessed …

… Ten.

A year of freedom after getting out of the Underground, followed by no longer than a year with whoever first owned him, and no longer than three months after that.

Ten.

Over the last three years ten humans had owned Sans.

At least ten.

Nine of those humans had bought him, used him, and threw him out within months.

     REPOSSESSED

I forced myself to breath as the ghost of betrayal vanished under the weight of anger and sympathy. I shook my head in an attempt to pull myself out of the spiral of my thoughts, to think everything through rationally.

There were two months before I’d face any penalty. That was plenty of time to deal with the issue for any normal person.

Unfortunately, my life wasn’t exactly normal.

Still, Sans couldn’t have known how busy I was about to become. It wasn’t like I’d had a chance to tell him. My own schedule left me little time at home to relax that wasn’t spent sleeping, and Sans had been avoiding me for the last two weeks.

Since Chloe’s visit.

He’d helped me take down the blanket fort, dispelling the bones in bursts of glitter and starlight that left Chloe wide-eyed in awe. She’d demanded snuggles and movie time, so Sans had cuddled with her while I folded blankets.

While I made us all box mac and cheese I watched Sans entertain her with (mundane) magic tricks.

He was scary good at sleight of hand.

Chloe had been enamored, eagerly naming him “Magisans!” after she mispronounced “magician.”

She insisted that Sans was obviously a wizard, and had demanded to know if Sans had gone to Hogwarts and what Harry Potter was like in person.

And when Sans admitted he didn’t know what those were, she ran into the office to grab my old copy of The Philospher’s Stone and forced him to read it to her.

She had some of the most compelling puppy-dog eyes.

It was nice to see that someone else couldn’t say “no” to her.

And that was the last time I’d seen Sans for longer than ten minutes.

I fell back onto my bed with a heavy sigh.

He was avoiding me, and I had no idea why.

I picked up my phone, glad to see it was finally late enough that I could call into my jobs to make sure I had work for the week.

Once I did that I could figure out if there were any clinics we could go to, or if I’d need to find somewhere and make an appointment.

I sighed.

It was going to be a long day.

---

By the time I made myself into the living room my stomach had tied itself into anxious knots. I’d spent the better part of the  last hour rehearsing a script of what I wanted to say, hoping it would ease some of my uncertainty.

It hadn’t.

I felt like I was about to back Sans into a corner, something I hated doing. I wanted to ignore the issue entirely, push the responsibility onto Future Me like I had done so often in the past.

But then I’d looked at my schedule and remembered that today was the best – and nearly only – day I had to deal with this.

I hated The Holidays.

I took a deep breath, steeling myself and pushing my emotions into their box in the back of my mind. I could deal with them later, when things weren’t urgent.

“Hey, Sans?” I said as I entered the living room, the cheerfulness in my voice strained and false. “Got a question.”

Sans was tense, wide-socketed and bones stiff.

“ ‘Sup, buddy?”

The strain in his voice was palpable.

Glad to know we were both on edge. That didn’t bode badly at all.

“Got an email,” I said as I sat on the opposite end of the sectional, as far from him as I could get. “I’m apparently supposed to take you in for some physical evaluation or something? You know what that is?”

He stared at me for a moment as he processed my words, whatever he had for a brain apparently glitching in the attempt.

Then all the tension drained from him and he chuckled.

“Yep. What about it?”

“I didn’t know about it until this morning,” I said, annoyed at the petulance in my voice. “I didn’t know that there were penalties – legal penalties. At best I get a fine – a fine I can’t pay. At  worst you get repossessed.”

Sans nodded, his brow bone furrowed in confusion.

“There’s a time limit,” I continued, feeling my words begin  to fray as my anxiety rattled at its box. “Three months.”

Another nod.

Another confirmation that he had known.

That he understood what was at stake.

I dropped my head into m y hands  with a soft groan.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I knew I shouldn’t blame him. It was my responsibility to know what was going on. My responsibility to make sure Sans’ needs were met. I couldn’t rely on him to keep me informed on the terms of my ownership over him.

It wasn’t fair.

But …

But I was struggling, barely keeping my head above water. I had assumed he knew – he had to! I’d forced him to follow me around for weeks before getting him on the lease.

It wasn’t like I’d magically managed to get my shit together in the last two weeks.

“… Didn’t think I’d be here long enough for it to matter.”

The soft words stabbed through my core and betrayal, drowning my anxiety under a wave of heartache.

At least ten.

“That makes sense,” I said softly as I leaned back into the couch with a sigh.

There was no victory in knowing I was right.

“Wish I’d known sooner,” I continued quietly. “It’s … well … ”

… it’s November, my budget is off, and I’m not sure how to deal with this on top of everything else.

“… I’m gonna be super busy over the next couple months. Today … well, Today is … ”

… the last day I can get this done. The last day before I start working nonstop.

He couldn’t have known.

But my anxiety had finally broken free and was quickly overwhelming the detached calm I’d cultivated.

“ …T-Today … ”

I shouldn’t put this on him. It was my problem to deal with, not his. I just needed to …

Deal with it.

“Today’s the last day I can afford to take care of this.”

I was already planning on not seeing Abby and her family for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

When else would I have time to take Sans in to see a doctor?

“I’m being stupid,” I said. I angrily wiped at my stinging eyes, frustrated by tears in them. “I don’t know why I’m crying … ”

Shame. Worry. Concern.

Fear.

And that was it – I was scared. Terrified by how easily I could have not noticed the email. How easy it would have been to continue on, ignorant of the ticking time bomb and the looming deadline.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I wasn’t responsible enough to be in control of someone’s life.

I was barely able to take care of my own life!

And even if I took care of this issue, I didn’t know if there were others that Sans was aware of and wasn’t mentioning, Other things I was neglecting because I didn’t have the time to make sure I knew what was going on.

It was so simple to miss something. 

So easy to fuck everything up.

Failure was effortless.

All I needed to do was fail to get Sans to a clinic. Fail to pay the fine.

Fail to keep him safe, like I had promised.

     Repossessed.

“I – ”

My voice cracked on the word and I choked on the feelings lodged in my throat. My thoughts kept catching on that word, dragging me back into a whirlpool that I couldn’t escape.

“I … You … You want to be here, right?”

The words were out of my mouth before I could think them through, and the regret was immediate.

Of course he didn’t.

He avoided me. He went out of his way to not interact with me. Leaving rooms when I entered, not entering rooms I was in …

And that wasn’t a huge surprise – it actually made a lot of sense.

Most days I didn’t want to be around myself either.

And now that I had started I could stop thinking (“Terra?”) of all the ways everything could have gone wrong.

If I hadn’t woken up before my alarm I wouldn’t have had the extra time to go through my email. I hadn’t really been fully awake when I’d gone through it, either –  what if I had deleted the message with all the political stuff, or the promotional spam?

What if I hadn’t realized how important the email was? (“Terra.”) What if I hadn’t read it.

What if I hadn’t found out until it was too late?

This was important, and the only reason I knew about it was a series of coincidences.

I’d been leaving Sans’ safety up to luck.

My luck.

And Sans hadn’t said a word about it. (“Terra!”) He hadn’t mentioned anything at all.

He didn’t like me, which was fair. I wouldn’t really like someone who presumed they could own me like a piece of property, even if they treated me well. He was always tense when I was around, surrounded by an aura of hostility and wariness.

Like he was always ready to defend himself.

And I got it – I did the same thing.

So why did my soul  feel like it was being torn apart?

“THERESA!”

I jolted, whipping my head up to meet Sans’ eyelights.

He was half on the couch a foot from me, hands hovering over my shoulders like he’d been about to shake me but was afraid that touching would make me spiral further. His eyesockets were wide, the lights dilated with concern.

… Concern?

He’d been worried? About me?

Why?

“You with me?” he asked.

For a moment I couldn’t think of an answer, couldn’t remember how to talk.

“Breathe,” he said softly. “In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

He sat back and exaggerated the motions for me to follow, and the tight pain in my chest eased. He shifted away from me slowly, relocating to the curve of the couch – closer than he’d been, far enough to give me space.

“I’m okay,” I said, blushing with embarrassment. “Sorry … I’m not entirely sure what that was.”

Sans shrugged, waving off the apology.

“You’re fine,” he said. He beckoned with his hand, and the TV remote floated over to him. “I’ve been through this before, you know? They send out a bunch of reminders, and if it got too close to the deadline, I’d’ve let ya know.”

“You have telekinesis?” I asked before shaking my head. “Not important.” I closed my eyes, shutting out excess stimuli so I could focus and not freak out for no reason. Again. “If I don’t do what I’m supposed to, they’ll take you away. I won’t be able to stop them.”

I took a deep breath, willing myself to remain calm.

“I don’t know how much you know about human holidays and traditions. This time of year – November and December, ‘The Holidays’ – is really busy for most people. Especially for me, and especially this year.”

I didn’t go into specifics. Sans didn’t need to be concerned over my finances. It wouldn’t affect him, outside of me not being around.

I wouldn’t let it.

“I don’t know when I would’ve been able to find to take you before the deadline if I hadn’t found out about this today. I’m about to start working basically whenever I’m not asleep. No breaks. You probably won’t see much of me until after New Year’s.”

I would have found time, of course, but it would mean missing work.

Losing wages.

“I just … ” I swallowed hard, clenching my fists and focusing on the pain of my nails biting into my palms.

I was being stupid.

I was being selfish.

I was stuck on a question that didn’t matter.

But I needed to know.

“Do you want to be here?”

My voice cracked on the words, the question broken and desperate.

Sans was quiet for a moment before he unmuted the TV and Sir David Attenborough filled the empty air with his gentle enthusiasm about the mating habits of some kind of bird.

“Right,” I said.

Of course he wasn’t going to answer.

Or maybe that was his answer. Silence and dismissal.

Really, I’d been an idiot to expect anything else.

I already knew what I needed to know, anyway.

Sans hadn’t been keeping information from me out of spite. He hadn’t expected to stay long enough for any of this to matter. I didn’t know if he realized how busy winter was in general, but he certainly had no way of realizing how busy it was for me.

Really, it was the best I could ask for.

I opened my laptop, looking up the clinic I’d found earlier. I needed to know how far it was from my job, and the best way to get from one to the other.

“Yeah.”

I looked up at Sans, wide-eyed and confused.

“I do,” he continued, refusing to meet my stare. His eyelights were focused on the TV. “I wanna be here.”

The words eased something in my chest, making me feel light headed.

He wanted to be here.

He was going to continue to accept my help.

Maybe … Maybe I hadn’t fucked everything up.

The segment of whatever nature documentary Sans was watching ended, and he turned off the TV. He stretched and then grinned at me.

“Lemme know when it’s time to go.”

---

The waiting room of the walk-in clinic was crowded with both humans and monsters. It was sparsely furnished, plain chairs sat in groups of twos and threes beside low tables that held outdated magazines.

The chairs were taken by humans, nearly all of them focused on their phones. The monsters, in contrast, stood or sat on the floor, heads down.

The smell of lemon and bleach made my stomach turn, and I grit my teeth against the instinct to gag.

The receptionist was on the phone when I approached the counter. She gave me an apologetic smile, holding up a hand to indicate I should wait.

I nodded with a smile, silently indicating that I wasn’t in a rush.

“Yes, sir. I am certain there are no appointments available at that time. We can set you up for early Decem- Yes. Yes, I’m listening … ”

I winced sympathetically as whoever was on the other end of the line began screaming, loud enough that I could nearly make out the words.

“Sir. Sir. SIR. If you cannot – SIR. I am transferring you to my manager. They will take the matter from here. Thank you for your time, have a nice day.”

She tapped a few buttons before hanging up with a weary sigh, taking a moment to gather herself.

Then, like the phone call had never happened, she turned to me with a cheery smile.

“Hello! Do you have an appointment?”

“I don’t,” I admitted, apologetic.

Her smile twitched, but only barely.

“Um, I need to do the monster registration … checkup … thing?” I said as I fumbled my phone from my pocket to show her the email. “I can wait, but … how likely are we gonna be able to get in by five?”

“Currently the wait is around three hours,” she said, looking cautiously relieved. She glanced at her computer, checking the time. “ … So, fairly likely – assuming no emergencies between now and then. The actual examination itself is simple enough – it rarely takes longer than half an hour. … Although I don’t know the exact time for a skeleton.”

I did some quick math in my head, giving myself a four hour wait and an hour for the exam, I’d still have two hours to get to work. I needed less than half that.

“Sounds great,” I said, genuinely relieved. “What do you need from me?”

The receptionist relaxed, her customer-service smile becoming something more natural.

“I’ll need your name, phone number, home address, and the monster’s name and ID.”

She turned to her computer and began typing away while I dug through my bag for my wallet.

I glanced at Sans as I pulled my driver’s license from its slot, noting that he looked … uncomfortable. His eyelights were gone, his smile tense, and he was holding himself in a slouch that was awkward and stiff.

“You okay?” I signed quickly, not wanting to draw attention to either of us.

“Fine,” he signed back, curt and sharp.

“Your information?” the receptionist asked, pulling my attention back to her.

“Right! Sorry,” I said, holding my license out for her. I glanced back at Sans, but he wasn’t looking toward me anymore.

The rest of the interaction went smoothly. I gave my phone number – having to repeat it twice when she transposed two of the numbers. Sans gave his own name and ID, voice monotone and devoid of emotion. I raised an eyebrow at him, but he’d immediately gone back to staring at the wall, avoiding my eyes.

“You’ll need to fill out a few forms,” the receptionist said as the printer beside her whirred to life. “As I said before, the wait is around three hours, but it could be longer if there’s an emergency. Or shorter, if someone decides the wait isn’t worth it. If there’s no space in the waiting room you can wait outside. The technicians check out there as well as in here.

“If you want to go elsewhere please be aware that you’ll lose your place in line if you are not back in time.”

I nodded, understanding. It was what I had expected. I’d brought my phone, an extra battery, and a book I’d been meaning to read for a while now. I was prepared to wait.

I was just relieved that we were likely to get in at all today.

“Great. There’s a couple things I need to get for you from the back. More paperwork. I’ll be back in a moment.”

She stood and vanished through the doorway behind her.

I turned to Sans with a frown.

“Seriously, are you okay?” I asked softly. “You’re acting … weird.”

Not that I really knew what was “weird” for the skeleton, but he was obviously stressing out. Good enough for me to be concerned.

“I’m fine,” he responded, spitting the words out harshly. “It’s got nothin’ t’do with you.”

“Okay,” I said, holding my hands up in surrender. “Just … let me know if there’s anything I can do, yeah?”

I turned away, back to the receptionist desk.

And then it dawned on me.

Sans was scared.

I was an idiot for no realizing it sooner.

I didn’t know what he was afraid of, but he was acting the same way I did when I had to see a doctor. Tense, lashing out, avoidant …wanting to be anywhere else on the goddamn planet but in that office.

He was right – it didn’t have anything to do with me. There wasn’t much I could do to help.

Except …

I pulled my phone from my pocket and held it out to him.

“You can wait outside,” I said as I jerked my head toward the doors. “If that’d make you more comfortable.”

Sans glanced down at my phone and then back to me. The lights in his sockets flickered, reigniting as a dim glow.

“Seriously,” I said with a wave of my hand. “If you’d feel more comfortable out there, go. Just don’t, you know, wander into traffic or do anything stupid.”

“No pets?” Sans asked with a chuckle.

“Definitely not,” I agreed. “Remember the rules – ”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sans said with a wink. “You get to name it.”

He took my phone and started to head out of the clinic.

Only for the receptionist to return.

“Alright! I assume this is your first time doing this, so I grabbed some informational brochures.”

She took the papers from the printer tray as she spoke, tapping them into a neat pile before holding it out for me.

“They explain some of the terminology in the paperwork you might be unfamiliar with. There are also some handouts explaining the common procedures done during this sort of examination, although I don’t know how many of them would apply to a skeleton.”

“Why not?” I asked as I leafed through the papers, surprised at how many forms there were.

“Yours is the first I’ve seen – and I’ve worked here since the clinic opened, when monsters were still free! I thought I’d seen it all. The tests are for things like bloodwork and heart rate – things I assume skeletons don’t have.” She shrugged. “But I don’t want to assume. Anyway, you’re good to go. You should expect at least a three hour wait. If you’re not ready to go when the techs are, you’ll have to wait longer.”

“Thank you,” I said as I turned away, still flipping through the stack.

It was honestly the thickest set of intake forms I’d ever seen – including when I was an inpatient after … well, after.

I was only half paying attention to Sans falling into step a little behind me as I left the clinic, frowning at the paperwork.

They wanted a lot of personal information.

Like … a lot.

I stopped when a handwritten note caught my eye.

     I made a note to call when your appointment is thirty minutes out. There’s a shopping area about ten minutes north of here. It has lots of places to wait. I recommend the Roost. It’s a café above The Feather Quill bookstore. The coffee is to die for. The sandwiches are sublime.

“She must be having a terrible day,” I muttered, earning a raised brow from Sans. I shrugged and held out my hand for my phone so I could look up the bookstore in my gps app. “It’s a customer service thing. Assholes treat employees like shit. They yell and demean and demand to see the manager, while the employee is just trying to do their job.”

“Sure, happened in the Underground, too,” Sans said. “We called ‘em ‘Jerrys’.”

I snorted, “We call them ‘Karens’. Fittingly.”

“How?”

“It’s my mom’s name,” I said, distracted with trying to figure out the best route. “She’s the Queen of Karens, probably of Jerrys, too. The Empress of Asslandia, hope of the Asshats.”

Sans snorted a quiet little not-quite-laugh before frowning at me.

“How do you know her day was terrible?”

I waved at the note.

“I doubt she tells everyone she’ll give them a call before their appointment. Most people probably have to wait there or risk missing theirs. Apparently that interaction was pleasant enough to stand out. I know we’re both rays of sunshine – farting rainbows and making the world better by our very  existences – but that interaction wasn’t … special in any way. She must be having a bad day. Did that sorta thing not happen in the Underground?”

“Nah, it did,” Sans said. “I just wasn’t thinkin’.”

I smiled at him, noting that his eyelights were back. The sight settled something in my chest, and I let go of a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding on to.

We walked in silence for a bit before he laughed softly, his grin widening just a little.

He pointed at the paperwork in my hands.

“Guess you could say the interaction was noteworthy.”